President Ilir Meta and Prime Minister Edi Rama have resumed their political fight, targeting each other in almost all their daily meetings or events.
Last Friday the president warned the government that it should be very careful with foreign investors in the country. He was referring to the case of a Turkish company, Kurum, that managed the cargo area in Durres port and whose contract was cancelled by the government. The company said it would ask at the international arbitration court a compensation amount of 100 million euro. Meta said that at a time when the country suffered two earthquakes, the virus lockdown and has an increased public debt, such actions from the government are putting the country’s finances in danger.
Rama publicly rebuked these allegations, mocking Meta of political greed since in his words “what more could he ask of the Albanian people who have already given him the chance to be prime minister, a speaker of parliament and now the country’s president.” Rama is suggesting that Meta should leave his post and take that of his previous Socialist Movement for Integration party, or create a new one and further consider what to do after his term in the post is over.
However, what the PM sidelined, is the fact it was not the people nominating Meta in the post of the president, but his Socialist Party.
Relations between Meta and the government have never been peaceful since he took the post of president in 2017. Meta has returned by decree many of the laws sent from the government or laws passed from the parliament. In some cases, Meta has prohibited or delayed Rama’s nominations in the post of ministers.
Those political verbal confrontations are another sign that the political heat in the country is being dialed up as the elections approach.
